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Epitaxial growth of Zn1−xMgxO films on sapphire substrates via inverted Stranski-Krastanov mode using magnetron sputtering

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Abstract

We have succeeded in epitaxial growth of high-quality Zn1−xMgxO films of x = 0.04–0.33 on 18%-lattice mismatched sapphire substrates using magnetron sputtering. The films have grown in inverted Stranski-Krastanov (inverted SK) mode, where a buffer layer consisting of three-dimensional islands initially forms and a relaxed two-dimensional layer subsequently grows on the buffer layer. The resultant films have flat surfaces with root-mean-square roughness of 0.43–0.75 nm and are of high-crystal qualities even for large Mg contents; the full widths at half maximum of (0002) x-ray rocking curves are 0.05° (x = 0.33) and 0.07° (x = 0.14). Furthermore, we observed that the optical absorption edge shifts continuously toward the shorter wavelength with increasing x, and the band gap has been tuned from 3.5 to 4.3 eV. These results show that the inverted SK mode is useful for fabricating high-quality Zn1−xMgxO films with wide-range tunability of band gaps.

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The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Numbers JP21H01372, JP21K18731, NTT collaborative research, Toyota Riken Scholar, and The Murata Science Foundation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Kyushu University, Motooka 744, Fukuoka, 819-0395, Japan

    Daichi Takahashi, Naoto Yamashita, Daisuke Yamashita, Takamasa Okumura, Kunihiro Kamataki, Kazunori Koga, Masaharu Shiratani & Naho Itagaki

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  1. Daichi Takahashi
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  2. Naoto Yamashita
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  3. Daisuke Yamashita
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Correspondence to Daichi Takahashi.

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Takahashi, D., Yamashita, N., Yamashita, D. et al. Epitaxial growth of Zn1−xMgxO films on sapphire substrates via inverted Stranski-Krastanov mode using magnetron sputtering. MRS Advances 7, 415–419 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1557/s43580-022-00234-1

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